


And I've Thought It Over As Years Passed

by cherrysprite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Human, And they're theo's friends, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Because Fuck Canon That's Why, Bisexual Liam Dunbar, Coming Out, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Journalist Theo Raeken, Love, Love Confessions, Love songs, M/M, Minor Josh Diaz/Tracy Stewart, Music, Mutual Pining, Pining, Singer Liam Dunbar, Tracy and Josh are alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21619693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrysprite/pseuds/cherrysprite
Summary: Theo has tried to get over Liam so many times after he moved away to pursue his career as a singer, and just when he starts making progress, he can't help but think that new song sounds too familiar.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 14
Kudos: 114





	And I've Thought It Over As Years Passed

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for not posting anything!! Here's this. It's not beta read, like, at all, so bear with me.

Theo made a habit of it now not to turn on the radio in his car much. It wasn't hard, avoiding it, anyway. He was more of a bluetooth or aux type of guy, closely curating his playlists carefully and expertly for the mood or just what he liked, and had a whole bunch of them that he could turn on at any time. He had his own, more alternative music taste that didn't normally come on the radio, so it wasn't like he was missing out on much, either.

What was harder to avoid was the radio in other places like the one that always seemed to be playing from one of his co-workers desks at his journalism gig or when he was in someone else's car. Not to mention the playlists, which were even worse to think about when they came over the speakers of a store or in an uber driver's car. The playlists were worse; that meant someone had specifically picked out that voice to put into the mix, and that someone was choosing to listen to it and subject everyone else to it as well.

He knew that most people didn't have a problem with songs like "Stars" or "You" or even his least favorite in both the name and content, "Coffee Wood," but he still couldn't stand hearing them played. He couldn't stand going through his day and hearing the beats drift through the air innocently until the lyrics begin and he's tossed back into the cold, couldn't stand hearing something so familiar and far away whenever he walked into a public space, couldn't stand the implications of what any of those words sang so sweetly could mean.

Before Liam, music had been his way to escape from life. After him, music was what he needed to escape from.

Everyone he could have asked that didn't know him personally would say that they loved Liam Dunbar, without a doubt. They weren't asking who he was or disliking him in any way, automatically connecting him to an alto voice full of emotion and poetic but catchy lyrics set to guitar and piano. They had no memories with the guy, nothing holding them to their opinions. They could go either way about him, forget him if they wanted to. Theo couldn't consider himself that lucky.

His time with Liam hadn't been bad or anything. They were friends for years before things got complicated, when Theo had to go and screw things up for himself right before Liam left town. It was something he regretted every day, leaving things the way they were with the two of them, and he never got the chance to fix it. He had only just begun to forgive himself for it, but then June of 2018 hit, and Liam was suddenly everywhere except for by his side.

He still remembered the first time he saw some random person online talk about Liam Dunbar, and the first in real life. He remembered the first time Liam had popped up in an add in one of his friend's magazines, modeling for some expensive brand that Theo knew he would never have worn in real life. And he could never, ever forget the first time he heard one of Liam's songs on the radio.

He wasn't too proud to admit that he'd cried.

He just hadn't seen Liam in so long, and that was where they were then. Thousands of miles apart and on entirely different planes of existence. Liam had probably forgotten about the day of his freshman year when he stumbled into a junior-level history class and got to stay because of his advanced knowledge, and how Theo had sort of gently guided him through the rougher workload, because even back then, the guy was so soft on him. He should have known seven years ago that he was going to end up in love with him, friends then or not, but Liam was onto better things now. He probably forgot all about whatever blip on the map Theo Raeken was.

But Theo was still plagued with him on the daily, forced to remember all the good times they had before Liam moved to pursue a little pipe dream that had somehow hit big. He found himself zoning off about him as he was absently drumming his fingers on his keyboard at work before he snapped out of it, too. A year without him had really gotten him lost.

"Hey, you alright?" Tracy, his closest friend and the woman who worked beside him asked, leaning back in her rolling chair before pushing it back entirely on its wheels. Theo must have startled a bit, because Tracy looked at him apologetically and waited for him to nod.

"Yeah, I was just..." Theo trailed, blinking once when he realized what he was about to say. He sighed and turned back to his computer screen. "He's doing a Skype interview with someone at the firm, you know?"

"Oh, shit," Tracy breathed. She looked like she was trying to find something to say before she stuck with, "Oh shit."

"Yeah."

"Nobody told me, I had no idea. That sucks, Theo," Tracy said, shaking her head slowly. "At least he's not coming here...?"

"What's wrong?" Josh, another one of Theo's friends, asked. "Sorry, I overheard you getting coffee."

"You were completely eavesdropping," Tracy argued and smacked his arm flirtatiously before he pulled over someone else's empty chair to sit next to her.

"Yeah, but it's fine, I'm his friend. Now what is it? You look like I shot you. Again."

Ignoring that reference to that paintball-to-the-head incident in college, Theo rolled his eyes.

"It's fine, just my..." Theo paused. He never really knew how to explain who Liam was in other terms, but luckily enough Josh knew the story. "Liam's doing an interview with someone at the paper about his new song."

"Oooh, a new song?" Josh said mockingly. "About how he's never been in love all pridefully like whatever the hell Coffee Wood was supposed to be?"

"I liked that song," Tracy muttered.

"Well, you can't relate, I know you're into me," Josh teased.

"Anyway," Theo pushed through. "I know it's stupid. It's just the closest I've been to him in months, I guess. It would be so easy to reach him." Theo didn't like the sympathetic yet judgy faces Tracy and Josh had on. He picked up a pen on his desk and tapped first the front and flipped it over to the back to do the same, chewing his lip and looking down at the carpet. His glasses were starting to slip down his nose. "I know," He said softly before either of them could.

"Theo," Tracy said anyway. This was one of the reasons Theo didn't like talking about it. No matter how much it filled his mind during the lonely days, he didn't need assistance with it, and that was always what they tried to offer, even though there wasn't much they could do.

"I know."

"I think it's really time."

Theo met her eyes first, then Josh's, and swallowed once. He pushed the square-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

"I know."

__

Theo was convinced that he was incapable of falling in love with anyone who wasn't Liam. That became clear on his first date since Liam had left and never come back, which had only helped to make him feel worse.

They'd met at a bar, he and a guy named Harrison, a family friend of Josh's who Theo had only met in passing once. It should have worked. Tracy and Josh had made sure all of the major things worked; they had the same political views, they shared the same taste in movies, and they both had around the same personality types. And it wasn't that Harrison was awful, or anything. He just couldn't find the spark. It wasn't like when he was with Liam, and logically, he knew he should give it time, but he was impatient. He wanted the butterflies and the desire and the almost immediate attraction, consciously developing or not. He just couldn't feel it.

That, and the fact that there had been an interview going on during the date. Someone he knew in that newsroom was talking to one of his once-closest friends, the only guy he's ever been really in love with, and he was in a bar across town. It would have been so easy to sneak into the room where the Skype interview was being held. He could have asked about it, contributed questions, even, while it was going on. But he wasn't. He was drinking bottom-shelf, burn-your-throat liquor with a guy he barely knew because he didn't want to let his friends down.

Needless to say, the next morning, he let his friends down.

"It's okay," Tracy said, and Theo was glad she did, since she could at least manage to keep the exasperation out of her voice unlike another one of his friends. "Maybe we should take a different approach."

"Maybe," Theo said absently, although he already knew it wasn't happening.

The interview was getting published that night for the next morning's edition, and he couldn't stop thinking about it. He wasn't going to look at it, of course - he wasn't that stupid - but it was still bouncing around his head throughout the day. "Yeah, like, maybe you should work on yourself first. Gain a little confidence. Have meaningless sex." That obviously came from Josh, and Theo ignored it. He was never really one for casual sex anyway. He had kind of been too hung up on someone to get into a situation like that. "I can call Harrison up again. He was understanding about the date, and I'm sure you both should get laid."

"Thanks, but no thanks. And I don't need my confidence boosted. I've got enough of that. I just..." Theo trailed. "I need him to go away. For most people, they can avoid someone until they don't exist. I can't open twitter or a magazine or leave my house without seeing or hearing his name."

"Or fucking Coffee Wood," Josh added. "Honestly, Theo, if a song is going to kick someone in the face more than that one-"

"I'm sure he's thought about that!" Tracy cut in, saving Theo from having to listen to Josh's rant about the song. "I get what you're saying. I know it's hard. Just wait. Maybe he'll do something to make himself entirely unlikable. Fame does that."

But Theo knew that Liam wouldn't do that, just like he knew that he could never want him to go away. He had the kindest heart of anyone he knew. He would never dare to hurt anyone on purpose and would be so sorry if he did it on accident. The guy could barely kill a spider. His kindness was just one of the things he loved about Liam, one of the things he could never forget about him.

__

Theo's fingers itched to click on the article on the website's homepage. He was at work, for God's sake, and couldn't afford to be working himself up for nothing, but it was a late shift and it had been a long day and it was right there, that award-winning smile of a professional photo next to a screenshot of the Skype call. The headline was simple, almost tabloid-esque, which Theo found their media side of the paper always teetered on the edge of: "Love, Family, and New Releases in the Words of Liam Dunbar." A little wordy, but that was the last thing on his mind.

It was dark in his section of the office since his boss liked to promote 'ambiance,' so he looked around extra carefully for Josh and Tracy before he sighed and gave in.

He clicked on the headline, and his breath was almost immediately taken from him.

He was just so pretty. He had always been adorable, even as a freshman in high school, but really looking at him for the first time in awhile was a sight for sore eyes. The little gap in his front teeth had been fixed long ago but he still had that kind of pointy canine that Theo loved for some reason, and the sparkle in his eye was clear even though the bad quality of the screenshotted video chat. He was clearly happy to be talking to someone.

Theo scrolled further down, almost skipping the short and personally-deemed unnecessary introduction, but went back and read each word over twice anyway before the rest.

Q: What's been your favorite part of your career so far?  
A: "Honestly? Things like this. Most people think it's playing shows themselves, and don't get me wrong, I love that...I just think it's great to have a fanbase, people who genuinely like me."

Q: Is that different for you?  
A: "I mean, no. I had a lot of friends back when I was growing up and in college, and a couple of close ones, but it's still wild to me that I haven't met a lot of these people and I still touched them in a way."

Unsurprisingly, it all sounded like Liam, so he shouldn't be shocked. He knew that he was going off of something probably more than a little scripted, but he was still reading words Liam had said. This was the closest he was to talking to him.

God, Theo was fucked.

His anxiety about the interview didn't ease as he read further, either. There was only positivity about his job and his fans in it, nothing real after a few cycles of reworded and recycled questions and answers. Still, his eyes were glued to the screen, which was starting to feel too bright in the dark, as he scrolled.

He read through a few more questions, taking small sips of his coffee as he went. The clock was quickly ticking towards eleven o'clock when he could finally leave,  
but Theo was in no hurry to get out of his seat.

That was until he came across one of the last questions, which he had to read twice, three times, before he registered the response.

The question was simple. The answer, not so much.

Q: You've been teasing your fans for a few days now about a new song dropping soon, can you give us any hints on that?

A: "I was kind of hoping you'd ask about that, actually. (Laughs slightly.) I can't give you a title, yet, since I think that's going to give a little too much away to certain people. I will say that it's...different from other things I've done.

I wrote Coffee Wood while staring at a coffee table in my mom's living room, where I had grown up. Now, that song was a lot about not being in love, since that wasn't something I grew up with for awhile, with my parents divorced and multiple other failed relationships of the people around me in my head, so I talked about that a lot in the lyrics, but...things change? I guess?"

Q: Are you saying that this is the first confirmed 'love song' you've written, not just subtext?

A: "(pause) Yes. I think these past few months have given me a lot of time to think about the people around me and how I feel."

Q: Well, we can't wait to hear it, and hear about whatever special person you're thinking about with this one. Can you give us anything else?

A: "Unfortunately, no. I think that giving away lyrics or the title, like I said, says a little too much. You'll just have to wait for a few more days."

So there it was, Theo thought. He put his head in his hands after he scrolled down and found nothing else to the interview, elbows resting on the desk, harsh against the wood.

Liam was in love.

He should have known. Liam had always been the type for fast, intense emotions, even if they had just happened not to be anything along the lines of love. It was only natural that he'd find someone out of the thousands he'd met.

Theo just wished it would have been him.

And Jesus, even just thinking about it made him feel pathetic, like some stalker, somebody looking through Liam's window. All of the sudden, he had become the guy obsessed with a celebrity, loved by all and entirely unattainable, and he felt like shit. Like a creep. It didn't matter that he knew Liam before he got famous. He certainly didn't now.

Theo logged off his computer and turned the screen off as soon as the alarm on his phone chimed his dismissal. He didn't want to be in front of it anyway.

__

Things changed for him briefly after that. It hurt more, more, more to hear Liam's songs or Liam's name even spoken, so he didn't say it anymore. He didn't check twitter, he unfollowed him everywhere since he had been still hanging on by his fingernails, and blocked his name from showing up in searches.

Tracy and Josh didn't seem to mind, either. It was kind of an unspoken arrangement, keeping Liam out of their conversations, and it worked. Theo was still sad, but not as much since he wasn't open to mentioning it. They could still tell when he remembered something of him when his eyes became sad all of the sudden at seemingly random times, but they didn't ask and he didn't tell.

It was almost easy, even, to get Theo to agree with a second date with Harrison. They met up again, this time at the same bar, where they shared the same conversation and had the same experience. The only thing different about that time was Theo's forced ignorance; he didn't think about the missing spark. He   
didn't think about Liam.

__

It had been about a week since he had last talked about Liam, definitely not that long since he last thought about him, and Tracy did something Theo never expected her to.

She called him while he was sitting in his car, having taken another late shift to distract himself from the hurt. He hadn't seen Harrison again, since while he wasn't pushing him away, nothing was keeping him particularly interested, so these work days and long drives home were all he had to work with for distraction. He had just been setting his messenger bag in the passenger seat of his car when he got a call from Tracy, and while he was tired, he furrowed his brow and answered it. She wouldn't be calling him if it weren't important.

"Theo, hey," She said a little breathlessly, sounding anxious. Theo heard a voice in the background, Josh's, asking 'did you call him yet' and Theo would have asked her why he was at her house so late if he wasn't already concerned by the tone she spoke in. For a second, Theo was afraid that someone had died or Tracy was suddenly and miraculously about to have a baby or something. Either way, he was about ready to punch a route to a hospital in his GPS. "Look, I wouldn't call you about this if it wasn't important, but something isn't right about that song."

For all of the times Theo brought Liam up when he didn't need to, it was surprising for both of them in hindsight how easily he groaned. "Tracy, I don't want to listen to it."

"No, She's serious!" Josh cut in, and Theo was about to make some retort in his frustration about his setting, but got interrupted. "Come on, we've been trying to get you over him for the longest time, you know we're serious."

"Nothing about that song is serious enough that you need to call me this late," Theo argued, though his heart was starting to pound. "I'm just trying to drive home, can you let me leave the parking garage?"

"Please, Theo. Just turn it on," Tracy pleaded, sounding desperate. Theo sighed. "Theo."

"Fine! Fine, okay? I'm turning the fucking song on!" Theo scoffed, making faces even though no one was around to see them. Because fuck her for making him purposely search Liam's name, that's why. "What's it called?"

"Green," Tracy replied. "It's really really-"

"Bad?" Josh interrupted.

"No, shut up! Specific!"

Theo could barely hear them anyway as he typed it into the search bar, his phone on speaker at that point. The cover was simple, an upward facing view of leaves of an oak tree. Probably the one in Liam's childhood backyard. They'd spent many afternoons under that tree, but Theo didn't have time to think about it then.

Tracy and Josh were still waiting with bated breath as he put the song on, and Theo braced himself, his body slack and already sad-looking, kind of.

Soft guitar music lifted up through the car, the type that could only come from gentle picking at strings, intricate but simple in it's own way. Theo could immediately tell the difference between this song and his others. His heart wouldn't calm down and it was slowly creeping into his throat. "Theo?" Tracy asked, unable to hear the music.

"Ssh," Theo responded, now entirely focused on the music drifting from the speakers of his car.

At first when he heard Liam's voice, there was no reaction. He'd heard him sing before, heard him talk. It wasn't like the real thing.

The soft, silky tone he had never heard before, however, did get one. Theo's breath caught in his throat and he hung onto every word.

He didn't make much out the first time around. The song sounded sweet, soft, like it was part of a soundtrack for someone falling in love. The words he did catch were just as sweet, and he was beginning to understand why Tracy had called him about it, no matter how hard he was trying to push the notion back. In those words, Liam was describing someone, vague enough to fit anyone at first, specific enough to make Theo worry.

Theo knew how much Liam despised country music, but it was starting to drift into it, since this was from the heart. The bridge was soft and slow as what he had heard already, melting from one of the verses seamlessly.

_Told myself I'd never fall in love  
Didn't know what it felt like, that it'd hurt so bad  
But when I think of a simpler time, the age of fourteen  
I pay more attention to the sights I've seen_

_[Chorus]_

_Seventeen, eyes bright green  
Should have known right then that it was the end  
Changing schools, crowded classrooms  
My lonely lips pronouncing that name_

_Would've seemed so perfect if I'd stopped and took a look  
A look at who was in front of me..._

_[Verse 2]_

_And I've thought it over as years passed  
What I should've said and should've asked  
And all I can do now is hope  
That my song plays on the radio  
and my green eyes will find their way home._

__

"Theo?" Tracy asked when she called him a second time. This time, Theo was already driving, and he had missed a few calls already, not having meant to hang up on her in the first place but not being able to bring himself to fix his mistake when his fingers slipped on the buttons. "Theo, are you okay?"

Theo didn't hesitate in answering, even if he had nothing to say, or more realistically, nothing he knew how to. "What the _fuck_. What the fuck was that?"

"That, you dumbass," Josh interjected, "Was a love song. Written for millions of people to hear. By the guy you're in love with. About _you_."

"No," Theo rejected the claim skeptically, a small, almost hysterical smile on his lips as he drove down a long street back towards his house in Beacon Hills. "No, no. There are plenty of people with, what, green eyes? Mine change around anyway. They go grey one minute and blue the next-"

"Theo, he wrote a song about you!" Tracy exclaimed, and Theo could tell through the phone that she would be smacking him across the face if they were in the same room. 

"No, he wouldn't. That could have been anybody, Trace, he wouldn't write one about me when that's so broad-"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Tracy shouted over him, the voice slightly distorted through the phone speakers. Theo took a turn down his street and a sharp breath. "'The age of fourteen?' 'Seventeen, eyes bright green?' 'Changing schools, crowded classrooms?' right, because Liam met another very memorable seventeen year old with green eyes when he was a freshman in class after he transferred. That's not the exact way you met or anything."

Theo was silent. Josh and Tracy shuffled around on the other end of the line.

What if the song _was_ about him?

No, it couldn't be. Liam had met thousands of people by now, and there were plenty of older teenagers he could have met when he was in freshman year. He'd heard him talk about his friends who were in Theo's grade, Scott, Stiles, Malia, Lydia. Any of them could have been the subject of the song that was now manifesting each and every lyric, voice crack, chord into his memories. 

But Theo had missed out on so much already. 

He'd chosen not to convince Liam to stay after Liam asked him for advice, knowing it would hold him back, and he'd chosen not to go with him when he was offered. He cut contact with him when he missed him too badly, and hadn't seen him in person in an entire year. Not since last _Christmas_ , a small visit where they hardly got to talk. It was November, and Theo was fading.

So if the song was about him, what could he do if he missed out on that one too?

Theo took a shaking breath.

"So what do I do now?" He asked to the empty car and phone receiver.

"Now," Josh started. "You buy a plane ticket and you call out of work." Theo was only trying to catch his breath as he'd forgotten how, but Josh took it as hesitation. "You have vacation days. Now's the time."

__

Theo could not stop buzzing. From the second he had allowed Josh and Tracy to end the call after a half hour of sitting in his driveway and contemplating to now, while he was boarding his plane, luggage already on board, he couldn't shake the feeling of anxiety that was wracking through his bones. It started in his chest, making his heart beat faster like he was on multiple energy drinks, reverberating into his stomach and spine which sent it down the rest of his bones. He could feel it in his legs as he got to his seat on the plane and sat down, like he couldn't sit still but couldn't move either.

He must have looked like he was on drugs to the woman across the aisle who he was trying to ignore eyeing him skeptically, or maybe appreciatively, but Theo couldn't blame her. He definitely felt like he was on something. He guessed that was what being in love with someone did to you.

It made him wonder as he waited for everyone to board how his love for Liam had never once begun to fade. From past experiences with other guys, he would have been able to get over it within a few weeks, maybe a few months at most, but Liam was different. With Liam, whenever he tried to look for other people or just forget about him entirely, it never worked. He was always drawn back to the memories they shared together and the want, the need to make new ones.

That just made it all the more important that he got to his destination.

He knew where Liam lived from the last time Liam had texted him, giving him the address even though they hadn't been on the best terms then (general awkwardness and being tense from Liam moving away), so all Theo could do was hope that he was there. He knew how celebrities were with their constant shifting around in different homes, but as far as he knew, this one was the only one Liam had. It was small-ish for what he could probably afford, and it reminded Theo of Liam's parents' house, which he already knew was what drew Liam to it. He always did have that little bit of sentimentality.

Or a lot of sentimentality, according to Green. God, Theo hoped it was about him. He was flying to see him, for fuck's sake. He could only imagine how crushed he would be if it wasn't.

With an almost audible shudder, he squinted his eyes shut and shook off the thought. He couldn't go and start psyching himself up now, not when the stakes were so high. Theo knew himself well enough; if he got up to that level, he would turn back at a moment's decision. He didn't want to carry around that regret.

"Little nervous there?" An older man's voice said as he slid into the seat next to him, and Theo was too anxious to be too annoyed that he wouldn't be flying alone. Theo glanced at him and nodded. "First time flying?"

"No, just..." Theo trailed.

"Seeing someone?" The older guy finished, and Theo grinned at him both appreciatively and sheepishly. He must have been pretty obvious. "I bet they're important."

"Yeah," Theo said. "He's my best friend."

He took one look at Theo and smirked once more, leaving him with one more question that sounded more like an observation. "But he's more than your best friend."

__

When Theo's plane touched down, his heart leapt into his throat again and stayed there as he got his luggage and a ride to Liam's place. He could hardly believe that he was actually going to see Liam. It hadn't really set in before then, but now he was a thousand percent worse off with his nerves and was bouncing his leg the entire way to Liam's house, effectively pissing off his Uber driver. Once again, he was too caught up to worry much about other people's annoyance, so he got out and forgot an apology as he got to the end of Liam's street.

He hadn't wanted to drive right up to his house, afraid that that would freak him out if a random car just stopped, but Liam's road was long and secluded, which meant he had to walk awhile. With every step he took, his chest hurt a little more. Nervous, so nervous. Every tree he passed got him closer to Liam, every block of sidewalk a few feet closer.

His heart was screaming out for him by the time he was able to see Liam's house through the trees, only around twenty feet away, thirty to the front door, and damn him if Theo didn't feel like he could throw up then and there with the rolling of his gut. He was vaguely aware that he was shaking, feeling too cold for the temperature there, and he had to take a break from walking for just a second.

He put his hands on his knees and stared at the sidewalk, small black spots dancing in his vision, but something reminded him to get it together.

This was _Liam_. He may be the guy he was in love with, but what was the difference now besides a few added miles and a few other people involved? He would always love Liam, it wasn't like this was a new revelation. He still felt the same way as he did the morning he realized he was in love with him, when he was senior in high school and Liam was a sophomore, the two of them still in the same history class.

He had come in there, obviously tired, with a smile on his face and a bounce to his step because he just loved first period that much. To an exhausted Theo, who had spent the night wondering why he felt so weird about a different guy who was after him, it was a wakeup. Needless to say, Theo hadn't gone to sleep again after that.

Because they had memories together, ones that he shouldn't worry about. Ones that took place on sidewalks just like this one, in front of Liam's old house that really did look like his new one, drawing shapes on the sidewalk with chalk as grown adults home for Thanksgiving weekend. Climbing the trees that were as tall as the ones right next to him and Theo going with Liam to the ER when he fell out of one of them the day before Christmas. Spending their weekends together whenever Theo could get home from college while Liam was still in junior and senior year of high school, because they couldn't go that long without seeing each other.

And Theo was reminded then that a year with them didn't change all that much, and it would have taken amnesia for Liam to forget about him.

He thought about that the rest of the way towards Liam's door, the nerves and dread still there, but pushed slightly to the back of his mind as he rang the doorbell. He waited patiently, eyeing the car in the driveway. He should be here, he should be here...

The first sign of Liam he got was hearing him probably bounding down the stairs to get the door, since it didn't really matter how old he got; that guy would never be light on his feet. Theo unconsciously held his breath and sucked in his gut, blinking hard a few times as the heavy footsteps came closer and closer. 

There was a second of terror, panic, before Liam opened the door, and after that second was up, there was no more time to feel.

He was staring into two wide blue eyes that he'd missed for so long.

Liam had one hand on the edge of the door, the other raised slightly as it had been going to rest on the doorframe but got frozen in his shock. Those blue eyes were blown, mouth slightly open, and there was no movement from either of them at first. Just Theo standing on his brick doorstep with his bag on his shoulder and Liam leaving the door open long enough for a couple of flies to go in. It was an agonizing silence until Liam finally breathed out once, his expression still dumbstruck but his body going lax, and Theo found that he could feel the tips of his fingers again. "Jesus..." Liam breathed, looking Theo up and down, probably analyzing just how nervous Theo knew he looked. "It's been so- holy shit, come in."

Theo followed him inside with hesitant footsteps, feeling like he was wearing concrete shoes, taking the most subtle gulps of air he could after holding it for so long. The contacts he'd put in that morning blurred over slightly as they moved when he looked around, taking in everything he could about his surroundings before he had to face what he was there for. Liam was leading him to his kitchen, where he suddenly stopped and leaned against his counter. "It's...been a long time since I saw you last," Liam said.

For a second, Theo wanted to react harshly, asking him why he had never called or texted or bothered to think of him, but he caught himself before he could. "Yeah, well," was what he said instead, vague. "Figured almost a year was enough time to wait."

Liam turned his back on him for only a moment to get the pitcher of water from the fridge, pouring Theo a cup that he left on the counter. Theo set his bag down on one of the hightop chairs next to it, kicking around on the floor. "So..." Liam tried. When Theo tried again, he found he couldn't meet Liam's eyes just yet. The dread was bubbling up on him again. _It was too quiet, too quiet, not right._ "What's the special occasion?" Liam asked jokingly.

Theo forced a smirk and shrugged his shoulders. "I couldn't just come and see you?"

Too quiet, too quiet before Liam let out a tiny laugh through his nose.

"Come on, Theo," Liam said softly. Theo looked up at him nervously, seeing the sadness that had suddenly come over his eyes, betraying his smile. "I know you. You wouldn't just show up for no reason without a call."

_We used to do that all the time,_ Theo wanted to say, but didn't. His chest felt too tight. 

"So...why now?"

"Why'd you write that song?"

Theo rushed it out way faster than he had meant to, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth and in the air, he realized just how aggressively questioning it sounded. Liam tensed up across from him and a wave of regret washed over Theo's entire body. Fuck. "Um-" 

"It's-" Liam started before Theo could try and take his words back, shutting them both up. Neither of them knew what to say now, not even Liam. Training to be good with words and talk to people all day wasn't helping him much, apparently, and Theo was starting to wish he had never come. Liam took a deep breath that rattled Theo to his core, his gut drawing up tightly and squeezing his airways. "You mean Green?"

Surprising himself, Theo let a wry laugh pass and he shook his head. "What else would I be talking about, Liam?" Theo chewed his bottom lip. "No, I mean the one about your backyard. No. That was great, but I wasn't going to come and see you for that one."

"But you came and saw me for this?" Liam asked quietly, and if Theo weren't so high-strung, he may have been able to detect the hopeful tilt to his voice. Still, all Theo could do was try and fight past the lump in his throat. This was the moment of truth.

"I..." Theo was at a loss. "Come on. You have to admit that that sounds familiar."

"F-familiar to?"

"What other seventeen year old was there when you were fourteen? One with green eyes that you spent your days with? Because if there's another one, you've really been keeping something from me, so if you could just tell me if there's someone else or if you made them up, that'd be great so I can start trying to get over-"

Theo was interrupted. In his haste to talk, he hadn't been able to notice Liam stalking forward towards him, and he hadn't stopped talking even when Liam's hands rose to hold his face in them. He was only cut off when he felt the hard press of his best friend's lips against his, fingers gripping Theo's face just a little too hard like he was afraid he was going to disappear. Theo's eyes shut on their own and a small moan tumbled out of him in surprise, swallowed by Liam as he kissed him deeper. Theo felt Liam's tongue run across the seam of his closed lips and he opened them without hesitation, beckoning Liam closer. When his tongue first met Liam's, his knees went weak and he was only held up by the wall behind him and the hold he'd unknowingly taken on Liam's hips, one of his arms wrapping around his back tightly until they were completely pressed together.

Liam's hands made their way into Theo's hair and accidentally tugged lightly, making Theo break away for a shocked breath. Instead of catching it right away, shockwaves ran up and down his body as Liam kissed around his face and neck, never detaching from him for more than a second. "Liam, Liam," Theo breathed, trying desperately to get himself together. Liam showed no signs of stopping, so Theo gave in and grabbed him by the back of the neck lightly to pull him back up to his mouth. That time, their kiss was softer, tender, like the reality had set in that neither one of them were leaving so soon. Liam's eyes had been shut tight, but his eyelids relaxed and the furrow in his brow was gone, melting just like Theo. When Liam finally broke away to take a breath, Theo moved the hand on his back so it was right in the middle, fingers splayed out and his touch firm enough to keep him in. "Liam."

"For the record," Liam started before swallowing, resting his forehead against Theo's, eyes still closed. He opened them. "I don't know why it took me so long to figure out what I felt for you, but I was an idiot."

"Yeah," Theo agreed breathlessly, nodding and laughing, and Liam playfully swatted him on the arm before drawing him back in for another soft kiss to make up for it. 

"I was just hoping you were going to hear the song one day. I didn't think I was going to be so lucky to have you come to me, or even hear it at all. I understand if you didn't want to listen to it."

"I...wasn't going to, at first," Theo admitted, grabbing Liam's hand that was resting on his arm and interlocking their fingers. "I had spent so much of this year trying to grapple with the fact that you weren't coming back, that you were happy here, that I stopped listening. My friends forced me to listen to it on the ride back from work one day..." Theo stopped to breathe, but found that he couldn't, looking into Liam's glittering blue eyes turned dark from his shadow over him. He fought through, "And I went home and bought a plane ticket here."

"Fuck," Liam said, dirty-mouthed as always, and Theo couldn't help but be reminded of the time Liam got in trouble for saying it in front of his mother. He laughed a little, and Liam didn't ask what about; he already knew. "Oh, my God, I can't believe I have you here with me finally, finally," He sighed and kissed Theo on the cheek. "I've been waiting for this for so long..."

"Me too," Theo said, leaning against him and pulling him in for a hug. It was a few blissful minutes of Liam's head resting on his shoulder and their arms wrapped around each other before something occurred to him and he blinked his eyes open suddenly. "Oh, shit," Theo said, startling Liam slightly and making him pull back to look at him with concern. "What are you gonna do now? With telling people? What are we going to do about that? I mean, you don't have to tell anyone, but what's the plan?"

To his surprise, Liam just smiled. "Baby," Liam said, and Theo felt a warmth in his chest he'd never experienced before. "You don't have to worry about that right now. All you need to know is that I love you. We'll...we'll figure it out."

__

Of course, Theo couldn't stay with Liam forever. He stayed at Liam's house for a week, taking those off days and working on his articles during the times he wasn't spending attached to Liam's hip, but eventually, he had to go back to Beacon Hills. It was hard to leave, but surprisingly, it didn't hurt as badly once he was home. All he felt was content now when someone brought Liam up. It was even funny to him now, sometimes, if he were being honest, satisfying, for one of his co-workers to call Liam cute or hot, because that was his boyfriend, his person, and he had no doubt that they belonged to each other.

It was about a month after Theo left Liam's house that Liam did his first big concert since the release of Green. He'd done a few before, but a lot smaller-scale, like in bars and yards, and this one was the first that was actually being played in an arena. He'd texted Theo while he was at work right before he was set to go on, telling him he loved him and Theo wishing him good luck.

He was still thinking about Liam's concert as he shut down his computer and headed down to the parking lot, and he got a message from one of he and Liam's mutual friends, Mason. It was a video, the thumbnail showing the green and white stage lighting, so he clicked on it without hesitation. He watched it as he got into his car. 

Theo grinned widely to himself as he heard the familiar and now beautiful notes of Green start to drift through his car from the phone, sounding even better played in person. Liam's hands were perfect over the strings of his acoustic guitar and he was already grinning as he sang the first few lines of his song, looking into Mason's camera. He must have known he was there. 

Liam raised his eyebrows a little bit, probably to tell him to pay attention, before the chorus and second verse hit.

Unlike the other times he'd performed it, he quieted it down, slower, calmer so that everyone could hear it clearly.

_Told myself I'd never fall in love  
Didn't know what it felt like, that it'd hurt so bad  
But when I think of a simpler time, the age of fourteen  
I pay more attention to the sights I've seen_

_Seventeen, eyes bright green  
Should have known right then that it was the end  
Changing schools, crowded classrooms  
My lonely lips pronouncing...his name_

_Would've seemed so perfect if I'd stopped and took a look  
A look at who was in front of me..._

_And I've thought it over as years passed  
What I should've said and should've asked  
And all I can do now is hope  
That my song plays on the radio  
and my green eyes found their way home._

People cheered raucously in the crowd in shock and happiness as Liam changed the pronouns and the last line, and Theo felt a large smile splitting his own face. It was as if Liam knew, and he smiled right into Mason's camera and mouthed something, probably telling Mason to send it.

With shaking fingers, Theo texted Liam, doubting he had his phone on him, but sending it anyway. He'd want to see it after the show.

**Delivered 10:47 PM to Liam**  
Jesus Christ I love you

Instead of what he was expecting, the read receipt came up only a second later, which made Theo hesitate to start his car. He had his phone onstage? 

A facetime call request popped up on his screen from Liam and he almost jumped out of his skin, but he still fixed his hair and straightened his glasses in the rearview mirror before answering anyway. 

"So, anyway, guys, that song's about my boyfriend," Liam was saying when Theo picked up, the angle being faced upwards towards him. People were positively _screeching_. "I won't give away his name since we didn't talk that part over, he didn't even know I was doing this until tonight...but my friend just sent him a video of that last song and I just called him and he picked up, so there's that." Theo had to laugh as the cheering got louder and Liam angled his phone so Theo could see his smiling face. "Hey, baby."

"That was...Oh my God," Theo chuckled, vaguely hearing his own voice reverberate through the arena's soundsystem. "Am I hooked up to a mic right now? Seriously?"

Liam laughed at the accidental wonder that had been in his voice. "Yeah. They can't see your face though, don't worry. But guys, he's like, really hot," Liam said after he turned to the microphone. "And yeah, I met him when I was a freshman in high school, and it kinda went like it was in the song. He's my best friend, and I love him, and Jesus, I sound drunk..." He trailed off humorously, shaking his head a little bit. Theo grinned, knowing Liam caught it out of the corner of his eye. "And I'm bisexual, that's boys and girls, since I know that's your next question," He said. "Babe, you wanna say something to them?"

Sitting in his car still, Theo didn't really know what to say, but mustered up the courage as Liam put the speaker up to his microphone and turned the camera so that Theo could see the giant crowd. He knew none of them could see him and identify him, that was something for another time, so Theo spoke easily. "I just, I guess, uh, thank you for supporting Liam," He said, enjoying the applause that came from the crowd. He understood why Liam liked this. "And for streaming the song enough that it got to my friends, who made me listen to it. We wouldn't be together if it weren't for you guys hyping up the song. I'll...talk to you guys soon?" It didn't matter how awkward Theo was; the fans loved Liam, so they loved Theo too.

Liam turned the camera back around to him. "Alright, well, I need to get back to my set," Liam said, and Theo nodded. "-But I'll call you when I'm back to the hotel, okay? I love you."

"I love you too," Theo said wholeheartedly, his chest filling with glee. "Bye, Li."

And dating a celebrity was weird, as Theo found out; he had tweets about him now, all different variations of 'well he SOUNDS cute' and 'We need a name so we can make a ship name,' but since it was Liam...

He was going to get used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!  
> Once again, so sorry that I haven't put anything out in awhile. My school's production is over, so I've had a lot more time recently, though! I do have to say that I miss my rehearsals, but now I've got 2-4 extra hours a day to write, at least.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
